Do you walk in (the Valley of Kings)
by Twin Sun Leader
Summary: /Lastman/ The pale sun is still low above the valley, flowing mist rising from the depth of the chasms, rocky outcrops surfacing like the fins of some giant beast. Under Howard's hands, both the flesh and the prosthetic one: the tremors of the bike rushing forward. In front of him, what he bled for, betrayed for, killed for: the Valley of Kings.


_A Yuletide fic for Malurette, first published on AO3._

_This fic is a character-study for Howard and an attempt to bridge where the anime leftoff with the comics circa volume 11. Expect spoilers for both._  
_Title is from "Glitter and Gold" by Barns Courtney. The line was too good not to use it. ;)_  
_Huge thanks to Isis for the beta, any mistake left is mine._

* * *

**Do you walk in (the Valley of Kings)**

_Have you never sensed that other worlds exist?  
And among all these worlds, the one you're stuck in is nothing but a sordid dead end? _

_What if what we call reality concealed a passage?  
Would you dare to go through, to drink the nectar of truth and burn your eyes on the web of the universe? _

_Libraries are full of those worlds of legends.  
Their dusty books form the labyrinth guarding the only true one: the legend of the Valley of Kings. _

_/_

The pale sun is still low above the valley, flowing mist rising from the depth of the chasms, rocky outcrops surfacing like the fins of some giant beast. Under Howard's hands, both the flesh and the prosthetic one: the tremors of the bike rushing forward. In front of him: the rolling foothills, and further yet, everything he ever dreamed of. What he bled for, betrayed for, killed for: the Valley of Kings.

He has never been one for poetry, but he could try, maybe, on this glorious morning. Magic is in the air. No matter how trite the sentiment may sounds coming from a man like him, it is true, he can feel it, exhilarating; either the remnants of the portal he crossed or maybe something intrinsic to this place, power, endless possibilities. The air is crisp and everything seems brighter and more real than ever before. The cold that makes him shiver in his too-thin jacket; the low howl of the wind sweeping the barren gorges in the endless dust clouds that must be what the maps in the Book of Kings called the Breath of Reine-Iguane. The deep flaps of the giant bird rising from the mist and the colors of its plumage, vivid, otherworldly.

Even his encounter with the black iguana can't shake the profound feeling of awe… but how could it, when with the beast and the new scars comes Marianne? Marianne, fair and deadly, and with her a sense of wonder greater than ever. Marianne who is beautiful and kind, who can yield magic, more power than the Wrens ever handled. Even Rizel had but a pale shade of the flowing energy of the Valley, which she can master. Howard never dreamt of _who _he might find in the Valley, only of the place itself, but if he had it would have been her, surely.

He is not naive; he knows that the people there are no fundamentally different than they are in Paxtown, in the old world. They can be as petty, as savage, as bigoted. But not Marianne. Marianne is like that first morning riding into the Valley: real and bright after the dullness of the world he left behind. A promise, kept.

It was worth it, and already the shadow world is fading behind him, as insubstantial as a dream, meaningless… Chubby, left to bleed out in the arena; Aldana and the Wrens; Rizel; even Siri, whose unwilling sacrifice was the key. There was no other way forward, and so Howard can't regret what he did, not when it got him here, where he was always meant to be, in reach of the knowledge he had searched for for so long.

Marianne knows him as a traveler and she answers every question he has about the Valley, about the magic, about her. He sees his own joy, his wonder in this world and in her reflected back at him in her quiet smile, her clear eyes, and it's perfect, everything he ever wanted and even what he never knew to want. She is like him, an orphan with no one left to tie her to her old life, once she explains to her teacher she doesn't want to be in the Royal Guard anymore. She doesn't tell him how it went, but the answer is obvious: not well. But she choose him, Howard, and that's all that really matters.

Happiness is a foreign thing for him. He was ever only content at most, always turned toward something greater, something more, before even knowing that the Valley existed. And then all his life was bent toward that better world, and what it would take to get there. He loved his brother, certainly, but he never understood how Dave could not long for more, could settle for the mediocrity of the boxing club, for raising Siri as his own daughter, even when he knew that she was not even human, not a baby, not a little girl, not a grieving teenager… or at least not just that. For his part Howard never forgot, never stopped looking further.

But like everything else, this is different in this world as well. For the first time in his life he can say he is happy, walking in the Valley of Kings, with Marianne at his arm, the gentle swell of her belly still almost unnoticeable. He has always been a man of many skills, and he is quite adept at social integration when needed. Being accepted in a closely-knit community takes work, but he finds that as a rule people of the Valley are mostly welcoming -and charm goes a long way. Most of his days are spent working for the various farmers of the small town they settled in, fixing broken mechanisms or lending a hand as a clerk when needed. Which still leaves him plenty of time to study the few interesting books he obtained from the traveling book seller and his trips to the nearest town with an actual library.

Quickly he realizes that even here, true knowledge has given place to religion and rituals, masking the real potential of the magic, limiting it to palatable bits, fireworks. Flash over substance, as if the power was to be kept hidden behind calcified rituals no one knows the reason for. And as talented as Marianne is, she doesn't share his passion for knowledge, for understanding. The magic is still part of her, at her fingertips, but she doesn't question it. She is even ready to let it go for a quiet life, content to be with him and work at the bakery because she can't stand being idle, content to raise their child when it comes.

"Magic should only be used to honor the gods, or protect the innocent," she once tells him in her steady way and only smiles quietly when he pushes. "I could teach you what I know, but what would you do with it? You don't believe in my gods, and we don't have anyone to fight..."

Her brand of magic is not what he is really interested in anyway. It's too codified, hobbled and misshaped for a single purpose, as if someone had carved the tip of an iceberg, and told everyone that was all there was to it. But Howard knows it's not. The Book of Kings tells the story of how the Wrens got their powers, but also hints at even deeper truths in dark squiggles he never could read, words in a script that doesn't match any language he ever could identify. Until he sees it again in one of the few esoteric books he managed to get his hands on here in the Valley, the familiar looping letters as unreadable as ever. But under it… To his shame, it takes him a while to realize that the text he _can _read is a translation. His very own Rosetta stone, the unexpected key to a new realm of questions to ask, of answers to look for…

And look he does.

Distantly he knows that Marianne is worried, but it doesn't really touch him, not when he has the books to decipher, a translation to work out. Knowledge and truth, once more in his reach. It's at the tip of his fingers, he can feel it. Almost there…

Almost...

He fails.

Or.

He fails, in the way that what he gets is not what he wanted, what he expected. From another point of view he succeeded: he touched a magic greater than everything he ever imagined, more primal, more powerful.

But he did so in a way he can't go back from.

The magic… For a long time he doesn't know how to conceptualize what happened other that as failure, because of the monstrous new arm, because of the scars and the disfiguration. And yet he did get something, in spite of his hubris he did touch a blinding truth, searing, even if his inexperience got him burned for it.

It's not just the physical aspect of things, though the grotesque changes to his physical appearance are a deep blow. It's also the wound of his failure —again— at reaching for the web of the universe, only this time he is the one who had to bear the price of his own foolishness. After a necessary moment of horror, maybe Marianne could have forgiven him, could have learned to accept him… But, no. He couldn't stand pity, and even through the pain, through the frustration and the self-disgust, he knows better than to try that, anyway. Even a man as amoral as he is, as unconcerned by right or wrong, could feel that what he touched was corrupting, went deeper than his wrapped flesh, his burnt face.

The lives of others never mattered much for him, and neither did the possibility of ending them. He never enjoyed killing, but in truth he also never really cared either way. His end always justified the means. He lost Charles the very first night, when he opened the passage that let the Wrens through. Every death since has been an inconvenience better avoided, but certainly not a heartbreak, with the possible exception of Dave, who got himself killed because he chose to care about Siri. With him gone, Howard really had nothing holding him back anymore.

But Marianne... He has no illusions about himself but he does love her in his way, probably more than he ever loved anyone else. She is perfect for him, the perfect ending to his quest, as magic and beautiful as the Valley, and he finds that he can't bear the idea of putting her in danger, of exposing her to what he has become. He had it all, but he was too greedy, he wanted to go too fast, and now he has lost everything he had gained, through his own foolishness.

Or maybe he settled too easily into his fairy-tale happy-ending, stopped reaching when he should have stayed sharp, hungry. He let himself be lured by the idea of a quiet idyllic life in the Valley, the mirage that crossing the portal was the end of his journey rather than just a new step toward his destination. He got caught in the foolish notion that he could do both, have both Marianne and the searing power of the true magic. Of true understanding of all the secrets still left to learn in the dark. But it was an illusion, of course. The choice is obvious.

Already the door of their little house is closed in his mind. He can't go back, not until he is done. Not ever, maybe, but it doesn't matter as long as Marianne is safe, and as long as he can taste again the nectar of truth, find a way to master the knowledge, the power. Then, everything will have been worth it.

He is almost there, he is sure.

Almost.

_Do you walk in the Valley of Kings?_  
_Do you walk in the shadow of men _  
_Who sold their lives to a dream? _  
_Do you ponder the manner of things _  
_In the dark _  
(The dark, the dark, the dark)


End file.
